In order to be better equipped against extreme rainfall events and its localised spatial distribution, a key challenge Kerala faces, the State will soon have 218 rainfall monitoring observatories, including automatic and manual, against the required 115 as mandated by the Bureau of Indian Standard (BIS)-1994.
In reply to a question in Parliament recently, Jitendra Singh, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Science and Technology and Earth Sciences, said there had been a request for installation of 100 more Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) in Kerala, out of which 15 AWS have already been installed. Work is under way for the installation of the remaining 85, which will take the number of observatories for rainfall monitoring in the State to 218.
Sources in the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said the work is to be completed before December this year. But with the current pace of work, officials are hopeful of installing the AWS before the next monsoon season. The State already has 133 observatories, including 63 functional automatic stations – 30 AWS, three Agro AWS and 30 automatic rain gauges (ARG) – to record rainfall, in addition to the 70 manual observatories.
